INDIO, Calif. – A prosecutor slammed Robert Downey Jr. yesterday as an out-of-control drug addict – but said a deal is near to lock the actor in rehab instead of jail.

Downey wasn’t there to hear the prosecutor’s put-downs during a hearing on the actor’s Nov. 25 drug bust. He’s still hospitalized from yet another drug arrest, just last week.

“He’s obviously not ready to be out on his own, wandering the streets,” Riverside County Deputy District Attorney Tamara Capone told reporters outside the courthouse.

“He’s an addict, there’s no question about that.”

A spokeswoman for the State Department of Correction – which could have tossed Downey back in prison – said the actor is in the middle of a 14-day detox regimen as a preliminary to a six-month, locked-rehabilitation program.

He’ll be re-evaluated every month he’s in the program.

Cops arrested a sky-high Downey last Tuesday as he stumbled into a dark alley, but released him hours later to his parole officer.

Downey, who spent a year in prison for various drug convictions, is on parole until Sept. 21, 2003.

Capone said her office might accept the state’s punishment on the most recent case, and not seek any additional time.

“Rehab is what the people of the state of California want,” she said. “When parole’s final decision comes down, which I believe it will this week, we’ll look at that and decide what we want to do.”

Defense lawyer Daniel Brookman pleaded with Downey’s fans to have sympathy for the actor.

“Needless to say, it was a bad week for Mr. Downey in terms of his recovery, but relapses are part of the recovery process,” Brookman said.

“A relapse should not be viewed by anybody as a failure in the recovery process . . . As they say, it’s one day at a time.”

Downey, 36, was arrested in his Palm Springs hotel room over Thanksgiving weekend after an anonymous 911 caller tipped cops that the actor was doing drugs. Despite that arrest, Downey’s career had been on an upswing. He won a Golden Globe for his work as Calista Flockhart’s romantic interest on the Fox hit “Ally McBeal.”

But after his latest arrest, the creator of “Ally,” David E. Kelley, said he’d be written out of the show.